Map 22 – South Uist & Benbecula

I didn’t really cycle that far today. For one thing, the ferry to South Uist didn’t arrive in Lochboisdale until about 1.30pm. It takes three and a half hours to get there from Mallaig, although that is very much an improvement on times gone by. It used to run out of Oban, which was a five hour journey. Before that it called in first at Barra, the island at the bottom of the Outer Hebrides, on the way to South Uist. That took more than seven hours! I learned all of this from the manager in the Lochboisdale Hotel, where I went upon making landfall for a badly needed coffee. I had slept the last half of the voyage and only woken up shortly before we docked. I was a little groggy and the rambling old hotel on the harbour side was all I could see on offer in the straggle of buildings that is Lochboisdale village. Inside it had a sort of faded grandeur, with leather chairs in the dim lounge and antlers adorning the walls. There was no one else around; but evidence of the earlier breakfast was still showing on tables in the brighter conservatory. The manager was perhaps not expecting trade from a passing cyclist; but he was obliging enough and the coffee was good. He may have felt a lasting sense of unfairness in the direction of the “Barra folk”, as he described them; but I was charged just £1.50 for my pot of coffee, which was the least I have been asked for anywhere on this trip and perhaps explained why the hotel looked just a touch shabby. 

I put on my cycling shoes and set off to see the island. I was back in the land of no trees and nondescript houses scattered liberally across the green landscape. Lochboisdale never really got going; but it never really ended either, and then I was in Daliburgh, which at least had a significant road junction, another hotel, a Co-op grocery and a modern school to give it a sense of importance. I guess the scattered nature of these Hebridean communities reflects the old crofting way of life, when families farmed their own smallholdings in what was a largely subsistence way of life. It seems as if many of the more modern homes are in the same land as their ancestors occupied, often right next to the ruins of an older building.

I took advantage where I could of smaller roads that wormed their way between the main north-south road up the centre of the island and the sand dunes on the west, a mile or two distant. These served the many farms and homes on this side. I made a point of visiting one dead end that is the most westerly surfaced road on map 22. There were no such options to the east. That was taken up by the modest mountains of South Uist and sea lochs beyond. Lochboisdale, with its natural harbour facing the mainland, is very much an exception. Most settlement is on the flatter west side, among the many small freshwater lochs with their white water lilies, yellow marsh marigolds and green rushes. I saw herons, families of swans with cygnets, diving birds and a short-eared owl flying over the water. There were curlews, lapwings, redshank and oyster catchers above the green fields. And for much of the time the sound of skylarks and the smell of seaweed and burning peat. All quite familiar if, like me, you had recently cycled in maps 8, 13, 14 and 18. But not if you are better acquainted with the Mainland. The Hebrides has its own sights, sounds and smells. 

I crossed the causeway to Benbecula and soon stumbled upon the modern looking Dark Island Hotel. Somehow it was almost 6pm and I realised I should probably eat now before I ran out of options. The weather all day had been grey and breezy, but in my favour. Although the threatened rain stayed away, it didn’t make me feel compelled to explore any further. Dinner was excellent and I washed it down with (appropriately) a couple of bottles of Dark Island beer – albeit a product of Orkney.

And that was that. I settled into my airbnb where a fire had been lit in the grate to cheer up the gloom. It can’t be a very late night tonight. I am on the 7.15am ferry from Lochmaddy to Skye and I have about 20 miles to cycle first. You can do the maths. It won’t be long before I am up. And it’s not even dark!